Carol Altmann – The Terrier

One of the strangest stories to pop up before the May Races kicked into full swing was that West Australian trainer Lindsey Smith was “asked” to take over Darren Weir’s stable complex at the Warrnambool racecourse.

Why is this worth a closer look?

Well, first, Smith is based several thousand kilometres away in Casuarina, suburban Perth, from where he has enjoyed major success as a trainer for the past 25 years. He intends to stay in Casuarina, but would employ people to run Warrnambool as a satellite stable…why?

Second, who is this person who “asked” Smith to take over the stables? All we know is that it is a “mystery buyer” who, despite all the efforts to clean up racing, is allowed to remain a mystery even though that person has paid more than $1 million for Weir’s 43 stables and comes from north-east Victoria.

Perhaps they live not that far from Maldon, where Weir was based. Who would know?

Third, Smith freely acknowledges he is a mate of Weir. In the past, Weir would stay with Smith in WA and Smith would stay with Weir in Victoria. 

Lastly, and perhaps strangest of all, Smith confirmed he was considering taking over the Weir stables just a week after Racing Victoria rejected a bid by local trainer Jarrod McLean.

McLean was apparently the first choice of the “mystery buyer” to take on Weir’s stables, but had his somewhat audacious application knocked flat by Racing Victoria.

McLean, as we know, was also Weir’s foreman and is facing his own string of racing related charges, including possession of a jigger, and is part of an ongoing police investigation following raids in January.

While McLean has been banned from racing in NSW until the charges are heard by Racing Victoria, he has been allowed to continue in Victoria until his hearing in Melbourne on May 22.

What hasn’t been made clear – locally – is that Smith and McLean are buddies too.

When travelling for training and race meetings, they have stayed at each other’s houses. Most importantly, McLean can attribute a lot of his success as a solo trainer to the generosity of Smith.

It was Smith’s former horse, Trap for Fools, that won McLean the $2 million Mackinnon Stakes last October after he took over the training.

And in August last year, McLean won the $250,000 Grand National Hurdle at Sandown with another of Smith’s former horses, Cougar Express. Earlier this year it was revealed Smith was passing on yet another of his former champions, Scales of Justice, to McLean’s stable.

Smith has said in interviews that, if he does takeover Weir’s stables in Warrnambool, he will not be offering McLean a job. (That might be because McLean soon won’t be able to apply.)

Surely Racing Victoria is all over this.

It will consider Smith’s application to become a licensed trainer in Victoria next month and, no doubt, be taking a very close look at the whole Weir-Smith-McLean relationship and suggestions  that Smith is merely keeping the seat warm.

In the meantime, Smith has already predicated his “move” to Warrnambool on having all-year-round access to our local beaches for racehorse training, which means access to Levy’s Beach.

This, of course, was also a main priority for Weir and McLean. Funny, that.

In the often murky world of racing, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I recently learned that Lyndoch Living’s chief executive officer Doreen Power has shares in at least one racehorse with Warrnambool Racing Club chief executive officer, Peter Downs, who is also a member of the Lyndoch board.

Why is this of interest?

Because in early February 2017 –  just four months after Mr Downs joined the Lyndoch board – Lyndoch’s Waterfront Living announced a three-year sponsorship deal for the naming rights to Warrnambool’s Grand Annual Steeplechase.

The deal is believed to have cost Lyndoch between $50,000 to $60,000. (A source has since told me the figure is closer to $70,000).

The always-murky circumstances around this Lyndoch-Warrnambool Racing Club sponsorship deal have just become a whole lot murkier, not least because Ms Power refuses to answer questions about it, or her co-ownership of the racehorse with Mr Downs and others.

Questions sent to Ms Power via email have gone unanswered.

The racehorse in question is a five-year-old, chestnut gelding called Strategic Force that is trained by top Warrnambool trainer Symon Wilde and has, to date, won about $20,000 in prize money. Ms Power and Mr Downs are among 13 owners, including Mr Wilde himself.

As it happens, the horse has been nominated to run in three races at the May Racing Carnival this week.

I can’t tell you how long Ms Power has held shares in the horse, but given it was foaled in 2013, it is quite feasible that it has been for several years and includes the time when the Lyndoch sponsorship deal was struck by the board.

As CEO, Ms Power is not on the Lyndoch board, but Mr Downs is. So is another high-profile supporter of the local racing industry in Warrnambool City Councillor Sue Cassidy.

Most importantly, Ms Power’s connection to the racing industry and her connection to Mr Downs in particular, has never been declared by Lyndoch which, we must remember, is a public institution, not a private company.

This is why Ms Power’s investment in a racehorse with the CEO of the Warrnambool Racing Club is of public interest, rather than what might normally be considered a private arrangement.

When the Grand National Steeplechase sponsorship deal with Lyndoch Waterfront Living was first announced, Lyndoch board chair Kerry Nelson was at pains to point out that Mr Downs was at arm’s length and excused himself from all discussions.

Maybe so, but it still didn’t look good. Ms Power and Mr Downs holding shares in the same racehorse also doesn’t look good.

My Mum lived at Lyndoch for the past nine years, and I can’t speak highly enough of the hard-working staff who made her life so comfortable right up until her final breath, but I could count a dozen ways that $50,000 or $60,000 could be spent productively within Lyndoch rather than on a jumps race.

This is especially so when the point of the sponsorship – to help sell the Lyndoch Waterfront Living apartments – has not worked as hoped and several apartments remain empty. The entire second stage of the project is also on hold.

This is the final year of the steeplechase sponsorship deal and, no doubt, Lyndoch will be offered the opportunity to re-sign.

If it does, the circumstances surrounding the decision are now more transparent, even if the sponsorship itself is still questionable.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

The Warrnambool City Council has dragged out its big feather – the one reserved for Midfield Meats, the temporarily-permanent wire fence around the old Criterion Hotel site and other assorted special projects – and gently tapped the Warrnambool Racing Club for multiple breaches of racehorse training rules along Lady Bay.

You may recall the WCC held a meeting with the WRC last month after training resumed at Lady Bay on March 1 and saw just about every rule in the book being broken (#notalltrainers) including riding continually in the soft sand, riding in threes and fours, riding at speed past beach walkers, riding one horse while pulling another, riding without saddle cloth identification or fluorescent vests, on and on it went.

At this special meeting, the council did two things: reminded all of the trainers of their responsibilities (feather tap!) and issued written warnings to two unnamed trainers (feather tap, tap!).

And that was that.

The training rules for Lady Bay have been in place for three years and there have been too many breaches over that time to count and yet nobody, still, has ever been made accountable for breaking the rules, often multiple times.

Again, this is not about being anti horse racing (#notalltrainers), but about a principle and ensuring training access to Lady Bay is seen as a rare privilege rather than a right.

Can we ever imagine, by way of comparison, the council issuing little notes under windscreens when people overstay their parking: “Sorry driver, you know this is a one hour zone, not a 90 minute zone, please don’t do it again or we will have to fine you.”

Um, no, I can’t imagine that.

For reasons which are yet to be fully explained, justified or proven, the local racing industry is treated like a special beast that is both enormously powerful and apparently terribly fragile all at the same time.

This is why, despite the council pushing madly for user-pays, the racing industry pays virtually nothing to access Lady Bay seven days a week for nine months of the year. The cost is $225 a year per trainer (not per horse), then $6 per beach session and $2.50 per swim.

Of the $6, about half goes back to the WRC to pay for someone to monitor things and make sure trainers don’t break the rules. Given the flagrant breaches that have gone on, the council should be asking for a refund.

It is also why the council is about to hand over more public coastal land at Lady Bay – in exchange for large-scale racehorse training at Levy’s Beach – so the racing industry can build a $500,000 “bespoke” car park for its own use. Can Mayor Tony Herbert explain what part of that deal is good for the public?

According to another document that dropped to The Terrier recently, other permanent fixtures might also be added to Lady Bay to separate the public and horses more safely around the Pavilion carpark and promenade area.

Good grief, is this a public beach or a satellite facility of the WRC?

Since the March madness, the errant trainers appear to have pulled their heads in and are sticking to the rules, apart from slowing down near walkers, but this is not because of the WCC flapping its feather.

It’s because the trainers know they are being photographed and videoed by a social-media connected public who, unfortunately, have had to step into the breach and become unwilling and unpaid enforcers to protect the beach.

Once upon a time, beach goers and racehorse trainers co-existed peacefully at Lady Bay because the horse numbers were small and the attitudes were different.

Riders (#notallriders) didn’t tell beach walkers to, quote, “fuck off”. Small, local trainers used to arrive with double floats, not horse transport trucks. The beach was wide and flat, not torn up into thousands of divots.

To claim, as many do, that it has “always” been like this at Lady Bay is a lie. It hasn’t been and those of us who grew up on this beach know it.

Locals who ventured down to Lady Bay today on what was a perfect Easter Monday morning had a reminder of how things used to be: a handful of racehorses, a lot of walkers, a kid with a soccer ball, a few brave swimmers.

This is it how it was and how it should be. For the council to allow otherwise is incomprehensible.

 
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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Here’s a twist on the $75,000 given to Sharp Airlines by the cash-strapped Warrnambool City Council  – Sharp Airlines didn’t ask for the money.

No, it was offered to Sharp as part of a $300,000 package to try and keep the passenger service to Essendon flying beyond last January when it was due to close because of insufficient numbers.

So this money wasn’t a “bail out” for Sharp Airlines, but an unexpected bonus.

The package was put together by the State Government, which in turn asked for contributions from Warrnambool, Glenelg and Moyne councils – only Warrnambool and Glenelg said yes.

Warrnambool ratepayers didn’t know a thing about any of this until the local newspaper broke the story in early January, right smack bang in the middle of the council announcing it wanted to break the rate cap and lift rates by 4.5% because it was slowly going broke. No wonder they wanted to keep it quiet.

The WCC wouldn’t say at the time how much it had given Sharp, but ironically the $75,000 figure was revealed privately to a focus group of ratepayers who were invited by the council to discuss the need for a rate rise.

As one of those ratepayers told me later, they were shocked to learn that the council could have said no.

Sharp Airlines, as a business, doesn’t need rescuing.  It operates other routes from other airports quite successfully, but the Warrnambool to Melbourne passenger route was not proving  profitable since its relaunch in 2015.

Like any business, the airline made a decision that after four years of making a loss, it was time to pull the pin, but if the State Government was offering a package to help turn things around, Sharp would happily try.

Sharp Airlines CEO Malcolm Sharp is refreshingly up front about all of this.

“We have never asked for and have never before received any government assistance, but we certainly appreciate the support,” he says.

Mr Sharp says passenger numbers have improved slightly since January, but a final decision will be made in the next six to eight weeks. The key is whether more business passengers get on board.

What the Sharp Airlines deal has done, however, is expose a much bigger problem with the airport which, unbelievably, runs at a loss that is picked up by – you guessed it – Warrnambool ratepayers.

So we have an airline receiving council money that it didn’t ask for, while that same council runs the airport at a loss. No wonder the budget is stuffed.

This loss is despite a $4.3 million upgrade of the airport just three years ago that included $750,000 of WCC money and was supposed to see the airport zoom into the future with more hangars being built, more flights, more businesses setting up….

Three years on, WCC ratepayers are still having to meet the average shortfall in income of around $200,000 a year.

Does this sound familiar to you? If you have been following the Flagstaff Hill $3 million sound-and-light-show debacle, it should.

A big upgrade, all bells and whistles, media photos, high-vis vests and handshakes….and then ratepayers keep footing the bill.

Despite running at a loss, the WCC still has virtually no user-pays fees for the airport.

While we are being whacked for parking, pet registrations and green waste, Midfield Meats International, for example, pays about $50 a week or $2600 a year to rent space for an airport hangar (the hangars themselves are privately built and owned).

There are also no aeroplane parking fees or landing fees, despite around 15,000 takeoffs and landings at the airport each year.

If the WCC charged, say, $50 a pop per landing and takeoff, there is a neat $750,000 a year … which just happens to be how much it hopes to raise through breaking the rate cap.

Head. Wall. Bang.

As it is, WCC is one of only two of the 79 councils right across Victoria to apply for permission to bust the rate cap. We can only hope the Essential Services Commission sees right through this and says no.

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